Is Drinking Alcohol Actually Good for You? Science Is Questioning It

You know that awesome thing about how a glass of wine a night is totally fine because it’s good for your heart? Uh, sorry to be a buzzkill, but a new study is calling BS on that whole idea.

According to CBS, a new research review of more than 50 studies that examined drinking habits and heart health in more than 260,000 people found that cutting alcohol intake, even for light or moderate drinkers, benefits heart health. Because it’s hard to get people to accurately report their alcohol intake (insert drunk joke here), many of the studies focused on people who carry a gene that is tied to lower levels of drinking—people with the gene are more likely to have unpleasant symptoms like nausea and facial flushing, so they tend to drink less. And even among those lower drinkers, the researchers noted that cutting drinking was linked with a healthier heart.

Caveats: There’s no established cause and effect here (there could be other heart health factors at play; not to mention that maybe people with that low-drinking gene have some other genetic link to healthier hearts, too!), and more studies will be needed to nail this down. But it might be a good enough reason to second-guess that nightly vino. After all, we know it may raise your risk for other problems such as breast cancer, anyway.